Selective Government Accountability

If I hear one more hippie croak about the accountability of military spending in Iraq I'm going to puke all over their pony tail and tie-dyed T shirt.

Unless I see posts on their blogs demanding the same level of accountability for social spending, I am going to hit the "ignore" button and delete their comments. And I'm not talking about a one sentence disclaimer followed by four posts complaining about the Pentagon.

One of my duties in the Office of Administration for the United States Environmental Protection Agency was to coordinate yearly submissions by each EPA department outlining how they were implementing the guidelines of the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act (FMFIA). Enormous efforts were expended to assure that the loss from "waste, fraud and abuse" was minimal. In fact, we'd spend millions to be sure we didn't misspend thousands.

And STILL, EPA departments regularly channeled grants to fund the operation and activities of center-left environmental groups who opposed a more centrist environmental agenda. And of course, there was the famous example of an interagency transfer so that employees of the Department of Agriculture could attend an important conference on "Methane Emissions from Ruminant Livestock."

But the real joke here isn't the fact that we were studying gaseous cows, it's WHERE this conference took place. A stockyard perhaps? Somewhere that methane emissions were a particular problem? NOPE! Palm Springs, California. The only livestock in Palm Springs are on dude ranches.

We all know that Republicans care just as much about the waste of $600 hammers in the Pentagon as they do about waste, fraud and abuse in social spending. It's time the lefties shed the skin of hypocrisy and step out into the light.

So the next time some aging leftist starts squawking "HALLIBURTON, HALLIBURTON" ask him how many farting cows there are in Palm Springs.